Edwards is Out

John Edwards is dropping out of the presidential race. I guess he is simply unable to compete with the prospective First Black President and First Woman President. While Edwards fought a good fight, it seems the mass media made this a two superstar race and Edwards' singular focus on poverty and corruption started to seem boring next to the soap opera slap down between Sens. Clinton and Obama. I credit Edwards for -- at least for a moment -- shining a light into the other America. The one we do not like to talk about. The one we like to pretend is someone's else's fault.

I cannot top Barak Obama's assessment:

John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn't popular to do or covered in the news. At a time when our politics is too focused on who's up and who's down, he made a nation focus again on who matters -- the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington. John and Elizabeth Edwards have always believed deeply that we can change this -- that two Americans can become one, and that our country can rally around this common purpose. So while his campaign may end today, the cause of their lives endures for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America."